Letting Go of the Things You Can’t Control

Do you ever get frustrated over the things in life that you simply can’t control? Whether it’s awaiting big news, or wondering how a decision you’ve already made is going to play out, you can’t seem to get your mind off the uncertaintythat lies ahead of you. You worry despite the fact that you have absolutely no influence over situation and that nothing you do will change that.

When it comes to the inevitable, I’m definitely the type of person who has a hard time accepting the things that are out of my hands. I like to have control over as much of my life as possible. It could be the slightest, most unimportant thing, and I still would want power over it. I figure that controlling what’s around me makes it easier to deal with both failure and success. If something I have total control over goes wrong, I won’t hesitate to take responsibility and own up to it. In fact, I’ll even be okay with it. If I made the choices that I wanted to make, I know that it’s my failure. And it just goes to show that I need to make different decisions in the future.

But when I can’t control problems or failures, I find myself incredibly frustrated. There’s nothing I despise more than having to sit back and wait for something potentially hazardous to happen. In these situations, it almost feels like you’ve become an audience member of your own life, having no control over what’s bound to transpire. It’s a very helpless and demoralizing feeling. And what I think could be the worst thing about it is that regardless of your lack of control, you’ll have to be the one to handle the fallout. Any problems that arise will suddenly become your responsibility. You go from having no power whatsoever to being forced to carry all of it. It seems unfair that you have to accept responsibility for what you didn’t cause and mend things that you didn’t break in the first place.

Feelings of powerlessness can easily ebb away at your patience. In my life, that’s certainly been the case. And as difficult as it can be to admit that there are things that we just can’t control, I think it’s a necessity. Because we can’t spend our time fretting over things that we ultimately can’t control. There’s enough things in life to worry about that we can control, so we shouldn’t waste our energy focusing on the things that we can’t.

Of course, that’s not something we can just decide and then immediately put into action. I think it’s natural to want to worry about the things that impact you, even if you can’t necessarily do anything about them. It’s something that I’m working on myself. And I hope that at some point in the future, I’ll find it easier to let go of the things that can’t be controlled.

This is a great and honest post. I definitely understand!! I’m great at telling people the same thing to not worry about the things you can’t control or ‘why worry twice’ just wait til it happens etc but personally I’m not so great at it! X

Nice post Paige. Keep writing, I’ll keep reading you. What kind of journalism interests you? I am myself a French Canadian scientific journalist. I have been working in this field for the last 20 years now. And you know what helps me to let go of things that I can’t control? Blogging! So I guess we are on the right path…

I can relate so much to you! I hate it, if there’s something I have absolutely no power about. I think we just have to tell ourselves, that it’s normal and even good for us to not always have complete controle about everything. Otherwise, there’s no coincidence anymore, which wouldn’t be good at all in my opinion. But it’s hard.
love, elena

I really love this post. It is like you’re in my head! I have trouble letting go and worry a lot about things, especially when I feel like I have no control. I remember waiting for a call to come in about a teaching job. I even cried. What good did that do me? I ended up getting the job, and I certainly did not need to worry as much. I guess at least we have the fact that we care and are passionate on our sides. (Oh! I love your photos, so I followed you on IG.)

Honestly, I have found only little things at the personal level actually ever seem under my control, namely, am I going to let go of this memory or not, am I going to allow this relationship to heal or not? The most valuable life skill I have found is forgiveness. This is saving me from a life of bitterness and stuckness in the past. Tjhanks for this blog ! http://wp.me/p1QwdP-1YL

Oh my god, totally agree! I am exactly like this as well, if you take a look at my blog my first couple of posts I mention how much time I waste overthinking and worrying about things that I cannot change! It’s something I’ve been working on, and hope that I am getting much better with! If you could check out my blog if you had a few minutes to spare, it would be very much appreciated 🙂